This is where an experience linux user (of other distro with different bases) gave vl a shot. He thought vpackager was our package management software.

This got me thinking, how intuitive is it to a new user that one we have a lot more packages to offer and two where to find them.

Then I played around with another distro that did something interesting. When I looked under each category in the menu they had way more apps than could conceivably fit onto the disk. When an app was clicked in the menu it activated an installer and installed it for you. Nice, because this really freed up what you could fit on the iso disk.

Then I though back to my first days of Linux on ubuntu where they had a separate installer in the menu for newbies who did not know the names of the packages they would need but would at least know what caterory that package would belong to.

So I came up with this for VL.Just install with installpkg and test it out and let me know what you think.

It's not a replacement for GSlapt, it's just a simple quickpick selection in each category of the xfce menu. It does introduce GSlapt though, so the next reviewer should get it right. :-)

Is a good idea to help new comer to VL/LINUX to install application. It will also help new users which are not familiar with gslapt/slapt-get and a good transition tools for them before get use to using gslapt/slapt-get.

I have few suggestion. 1. Can you make all the quickpick into 1 program that have different tap with it own program categories? Look more neat and nice. 2. Need error handling like checking VL extra repo must be enable before use the quickpick program or missing dependencies problem.3. The quickpick program must invoke slapt-get --update to get the most update packages list. 4. All the apps listed in the quickpick app must be fully tested and move out of the testing repo. Don't want new comers to accidentally get install some untested apps/dependencies from the testing repo which may cause havoc in their current system.

I have found that trying to predict users actions and reactions is way beyond my ability. A perfect example: once I put VL Light in front of a college student and asked for an opinion. Main question was "how do you get on the Internet?". I pointed to the icon on the desktop labeled "Browser". His opinion was that it needed to be named "Internet".

Assuming that kind of insight, a person like the above mentioned reviewer would probably not read the note on top, and never find gslapt. Worst case scenario he/she would assume that the short list was the extent of our repo. If seeking the lowest common denominator, I'd aim much lower.

I do like the idea of seeding the menu with entries for common applications. An entry could say "Install LibreOffice". Taking my own advice, there would need to be an overly obvious other choice like "get even more software", "see all available programs" or similar.

I was having a wild idea. Gslapt get the latest package info by reading info from packages.txt. If i add a categories option to the packages.txt, can someone create a script to read the categories data and display the packages base on categories?

I am not an XFCE user, but brainstorming anyway: I did find that you can add a cascading sub-menu to a menu category. The sub-menu positions itself as the top entry. However, this does require modifying global XFCE settings, which could be a bad idea. Does XFCE not use local configuration files?

I was having a wild idea. Gslapt get the latest package info by reading info from packages.txt. If i add a categories option to the packages.txt, can someone create a script to read the categories data and display the packages base on categories?

It's a good idea hata_ph. I've started doing something similar right inside the packages I make. See here ...

Code:

# HOW TO EDIT THIS FILE:# The "handy ruler" below makes it easier to edit a package description. Line# up the first '|' above the ':' following the base package name, and the '|'# on the right side marks the last column you can put a character in. You must# make exactly 11 lines for the formatting to be correct. It's also# customary to leave one space after the ':'.

I have been considering proposing a slack-categ (or similarly named) file for a while now, which would be exactly for this purpose. This was around the time I started thinking about programming some kind of local package manager in gambas, which I never got around to...

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O'Neill (RE the Asgard): "Usually they ask nicely before they ignore us and do what they damn well please."http://joe1962.bigbox.infoRunning: VL 7 Std 64 + self-cooked XFCE-4.10

The problem with listing everything and having the OS download it when you click on it is the days of unlimited bandwidth are sadly coming to an end for many. This could cause confusion with folks thinking it's already installed and then going over their bandwidth allotment for the month.

I've never really had an issue with repositories and knowing that's where I had to go to find things. But then again, I'm not your typical Ubuntu user who is nothing more than a click happy Windows convert.

I have been considering proposing a slack-categ (or similarly named) file for a while now, which would be exactly for this purpose. This was around the time I started thinking about programming some kind of local package manager in gambas, which I never got around to...

Making a slack-categ I could do just by greping the contents of the /usr/share/applications/* folder of each app in the repository. The difficulty is rewritting gslapt to use it. gslapt is done in C and that is beyond me.

Is a good idea to help new comer to VL/LINUX to install application. It will also help new users which are not familiar with gslapt/slapt-get and a good transition tools for them before get use to using gslapt/slapt-get.

I have few suggestion. 1. Can you make all the quickpick into 1 program that have different tap with it own program categories? Look more neat and nice. 2. Need error handling like checking VL extra repo must be enable before use the quickpick program or missing dependencies problem.3. The quickpick program must invoke slapt-get --update to get the most update packages list. 4. All the apps listed in the quickpick app must be fully tested and move out of the testing repo. Don't want new comers to accidentally get install some untested apps/dependencies from the testing repo which may cause havoc in their current system.

That all i can think about now

Hata_ph think I got most of those issues handled in the latest. It's not supposed to be perfect yet, that where a little bug testing by those willing to help would really be welcomed.

Making a slack-categ I could do just by greping the contents of the /usr/share/applications/* folder of each app in the repository. The difficulty is rewritting gslapt to use it. gslapt is done in C and that is beyond me.

Me too, but then adding a slack-categ is something we would want to discuss among the VL devs plus, at least, Jason (the slapt-get/gslapt author), anyway.

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O'Neill (RE the Asgard): "Usually they ask nicely before they ignore us and do what they damn well please."http://joe1962.bigbox.infoRunning: VL 7 Std 64 + self-cooked XFCE-4.10

A simpler approach would be to think about using the existing location field in a more meaningful, human readable way. It already provides some kind of sorting, though a bit more general than the proposed here.

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"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."Jorge Luis Borges, Avatars of the Tortoise. --Jumalauta!!